The Black Jacks (6 page)

As she worked, Emily could hear Uncle Yancey, Dr. Tice, and Captain McAllen talking. She gathered that a man named Jonah Singletary had written something insulting about McAllen's wife in his newspaper. Both Uncle Yancey and Dr. Tice tried to talk McAllen out of doing anything unpleasant to Singletary. Eventually they switched to the topic of the Comanche Indians, which broadened to include the Texas Rangers, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and the proposed peace talks at the Council House. Tice remarked that Mirabeau Lamar was one of those people whom God produces in his less resolute moments.

Later that day, McAllen and Tice strolled into Grand Cane so that the captain could visit with some of the other Black Jacks. They did not return until the purple shades of twilight had enfolded the earth. Mary Torrance was home from the schoolhouse by then, and Emily helped her prepare dinner. After dinner, Uncle Yancey sat on the porch with McAllen and they shared a jug of corn liquor. That night the mere fact that John Henry McAllen was sleeping under the same roof was sufficient to keep Emily awake until the early hours of morning. She dreamed of standing on the gallery of the main house at Grand Cane plantation, watching McAllen ride up the lane on his high-stepping gray hunter, while off in the distance a slave played a mournful fiddle while another sang in a rich baritone.
Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home . . .
And then McAllen was jumping out of the saddle and running to sweep her up in his strong arms and . . . Emily woke feeling like she had a fever.

The next morning she put on her calico "Sunday" dress, but everyone was too busy to even notice. Without being seen, she picked a wildflower and put it in the pocket of McAllen's coat, which she presented to him with the rest of his clothes, lovingly washed and folded. "You'll make some lucky man a splendid wife, Emily," he said. For some reason the intended compliment upset her.

After breakfast, Dr. Tice rode down the lane from town on his old piebald mare, and before long McAllen was gone, with Uncle Yancey and Tice and the half-breed named Joshua, bound for Austin. Emily was on pins and needles all morning for fear that McAllen would discover the flower before departing, and knowing that if Dr. Tice saw it he would realize she had broken her promise. But the flower remained undiscovered, and as she watched them ride away, Emily wondered with a flutter in her heart what John Henry McAllen would think when he found it.

Uncle Yancey was singing off-key in his gruff voice—according to Mary it was an old homecoming song that, oddly enough, her husband always sang when he was going off to fight:

"Home ag'in, home ag'in!

Now we'll all drink ol' Tennessee gin.

Ol' Zip Coon, Turkey in the Straw,

I'd ruther go to hell than go to war!"

Chapter Five

Austin, the new capital city of the Republic of Texas, had originally been known as Waterloo. Ringed by wooded hills on the north bank of the broad Colorado River, the site had been selected on land which had been part of the Spanish grant given Stephen F. Austin for his colony, and everyone agreed it was only fitting that the capital be named in honor of the late lamented "Father of Texas." In fact, that was the only name everybody
could
agree on. In the spring of 1839, the town site was surveyed and construction of public buildings commenced. Three hundred lots were sold at auction that summer. The government arrived in October. In less than a year's time, Austin could boast of a population nearing one thousand souls. As one observer wrote, "The city of Austin, like Aladdin's Palace, seemed to have arisen in a night."

The street nearest the river and running parallel to it was named, appropriately enough, Water Street. At the eastern end of Water stood the Armory Block, which contained an armory, barracks, warehouses, barns, and corral—all for an army that existed, for the most part, in the minds of wishful thinkers at the War Department. Between Water Street on the south and North Avenue at the community's opposite extremity, the east-west streets were named for trees of Texas, including Live Oak, Cypress, Cedar, Pine, Pecan, Bois d'Arc, Hickory, Ash, and Mulberry. The exception was College Street, which ran through the middle of town and intersected Capital Square. North-south streets, named for Texas rivers, included Nueces, Guadalupe, Lavaca, Colorado, Brazos, San Jacinto, Trinity, Neches, and Sabine. Congress Avenue was a broad thoroughfare leading to the one-story frame capital building, surrounded by a stockade to protect it from Indian attack, and occupying the tree-studded Capital Square. Cannon were aimed down Congress in order to deal raiding redskins a dose of grapeshot.

On either side of Congress, similarly unprepossessing frame shacks housed the republic's Departments of State, Navy, Treasury, and War, the offices of the adjutant general and quartermaster general. A much grander structure than these was the private residence which President Lamar had built on San Jacinto Street, two blocks east of Congress and three hundred yards southeast of the capitol building. He could afford such a place, since his first budget provided $10,000 for his own salary, a credible increase over the paltry $1,000 a year allocated to Sam Houston during his term in office.

Austin sat on the very rim of the frontier, terribly exposed to Indian and Mexican depredation. Hostiles were known to prowl the outskirts. No man who valued his scalp dared venture beyond the city limits without his gun. But Lamar believed that the establishment of the capital one hundred and fifty miles inland would attract settlers away from the crowded coastal region. Besides, he could not abide conducting affairs of state in the former capital, which had been named in honor of his political nemesis, Sam Houston, that "preposterous Vulgarian."

In the spring of 1840, Austin could boast of nine stores, nine taverns, six gambling dens, eighty homes, and six inns, including the old Bullock Hotel on Pecan Street just west of Congress. There were, however, no churches. The chargé d'affaires of the French government—the first to recognize the sovereignty of the Republic of Texas—had plans to erect an embassy at a likely spot. But for now he resided at Bullock's, even though he despised the innkeeper's pigs, who in their turn resided in an odiferous sty behind the hotel. Nonetheless, Bullock's was by far the best available accommodations in Austin.

Austin's most classically minded boosters pointed out that, like Rome, the republic's new capital stood upon seven hills overlooking a sparkling river. Far better, believed President Lamar and his backers, than that sinkhole of sin and dissipation on the banks of Buffalo Bayou, where the previous chief magistrate of Texas had incompetently carried out his duties as head of state. How appropriate that the town of Houston, with its horse racing, brothels, and forty-seven—count them!—saloons, should be named after the Big Drunk himself, the most profligate Texan of them all. Austin, on the other hand, was a shining city upon a hill, destined to become the center of a great Texas empire stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to—if Lamar had his way—the shores of the Pacific.

Grandiose schemes preoccupied Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, and on the day that Jonah Singletary came to call, accompanied by the republic's brash and bellicose war secretary, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Texas Ranger Captain Eli Wingate, the president was, as usual, dreaming such dreams.

While one less familiar with the president's habits than the newspaperman, the war secretary, and the Indian fighter might have expected to find Lamar at the capitol building, they went instead to his private residence, confident that they would find him, as indeed they did, ensconced behind his massively impressive French desk, surrounded by his equally impressive collection of books. Lamar had taken it upon himself to become the patron of the arts in the republic. He dreamed of a splendid university perched upon one of the Austin hills; he had been largely responsible for the naming of Congress Street, Austin's primary east-west artery, which might have seemed off, or perhaps even presumptuous, to those who were aware of no institution within five hundred miles of the Colorado River which merited being called a college. Lamar was a master violinist, and poet of no small talent. But there was enough of the realist in him to know that the republic's first priority was to make the frontier safe. Culture would come later.

The president stood and greeted his three visitors, then beckoned them to chairs arrayed around the handsome desk. He remained standing, hands clasped behind his back, and fastened his piercing gaze upon the secretary of war.

"Have you any word of the Comanches, General?"

"Our scouts report that Yellow Hand's bunch has been seen near the headwaters of the San Saba River."

Lamar frowned. "Is that all? Nothing more?"

Johnston shook his head. A graduate of West Point, he had given up a promising military career in the service of the United States upon the untimely death of his young wife and had joined the Texas army as a private. But a man with Johnston's training was not likely to remain at such a lowly rank for very long. Sam Houston had appointed him commander in chief of the army two years ago, replacing Felix Huston, a fiery Mississippi swashbuckler who, in a startling if characteristic display of hubris, had thought to march his troops into Mexico, promising them the wealth of Montezuma as loot, and without the permission of the president. Huston had not surrendered his command with good grace; in fact, he had severely wounded Johnston in a duel.

Though Johnston owed his promotion to Houston, Lamar knew that the man was no supporter of "The Raven"—the Cherokee name by which Houston was widely known. Johnston had parted with Houston on the subject of the Indian problem. He stoutly opposed Houston's scheme to negotiate a boundary between Texas and the Comanche nation. In Johnston's opinion, that would be giving up a very large portion of the republic to a bunch of savages. Besides, the settlers would never honor such a naive treaty. Lamar was of a like mind.

"Barely a week before the date set for the council is upon us," fumed Lamar. "Maguara and Yellow Hand and Buffalo Hump all agreed to attend. And they had better, sir, or they shall suffer the consequences."

"Mr. President," said Singletary, "my readers would like to become acquainted with the terms you propose to offer the Comanche chieftains—assuming any of them show up."

Lamar looked askance at the editor of the
City Gazette.
Jonah Singletary was a sardonic, bitter misanthrope, whose caustic pen Lamar felt fortunate to have on his side in the political arena. Still, he did not entirely trust Singletary, because he could not fathom the man's motives. Singletary's only joy in life seemed to be slinging scarlet abuse in his editorials. So far he had spared Lamar and his backers. But why? The question nagged Lamar.

"I can oblige you there, Jonah," replied the president, his tone so friendly and familiar that one might have thought the two men were brothers rather than uneasy allies. "I intend to impress upon them that unless they surrender all their white captives and refrain from any further hostilities against the citizens of this republic, I shall unleash the military might of Texas upon them and chastise them unto death, and I shall not rest from this endeavor until the republic is rid of the heathen race."

"I see," said Singletary. He was inclined to query the president regarding
what
military might he was referring to. The republic's army barely existed. Lamar had wanted to build and garrison a string of frontier forts from the Red River to the Rio Grande, but he had neither the money nor the men to carry through with that scheme. All Lamar could really count on were the Texas Rangers. But Singletary exercised self-discipline. It would not do to alienate these men by administering to them, dreamers all, a cold dose of reality.

"The problem may be," he said, "that these heathens cannot comprehend how it came to pass that the land over which they have reigned supreme for generations now belongs to us by dint of a little scrape on the banks of the San Jacinto River."

Lamar eyed the editor suspiciously, and Singletary, apprehensive lest he had gone too far, changed the subject. Rising, he proferred a copy of the day's edition of the
City Gazette
to the president. "I thought, sir, that my remarks concerning certain gentlemen who are currently loitering in the general vicinity of Bullock's Hotel might amuse you."

Lamar snatched the paper from Singletary's grasp. "What? No doubt you refer to Captain McAllen and his associates." He read for a moment. A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. " 'Our fair city is blessed with the continued presence of a hero who served so selflessly the noble cause of Texas independence. I refer, of course, to Captain J. H. McAllen of Brazoria, who, we venture to guess, may be scouting for signs of his beloved wife, who has been known to stray in this vicinity.' "

"My God, man," said Johnston, aghast. "I'm amazed you're still alive, Singletary. If you wrote about me in such a vein I would have killed you before the ink was dry."

Singletary merely smiled.

Lamar read on. " 'In company with the brave captain is Dr. Artemus Tice, that therapeutic vampire who has slain by his notorious malpractice more poor souls than the Yellow Jack carried away two years ago on Galveston Island. McAllen's other companion is unknown to us, but we feel confident in assuming that he is one of that stalwart band of Mississippi hooligans known as The Black Jacks.' "

"The other man's name is Torrance," said Johnston. "And he is a Black Jack. Yesterday he departed for San Antonio. There is one more. That half-breed that follows McAllen around like a dog. He even sleeps on the floor at the threshold of McAllen's hotel room."

"Why don't you just come straight out and say it, Singletary," drawled Wingate. "They're Houston's spies."

Lamar looked up from the
City Gazette.
The Texas Ranger was sprawled in the chair, a slim and dusty man who carried a Bowie knife and a Colt Paterson revolving pistol in his belt. His squinty eyes were like chips of gray glacier ice beneath the brim of his hat, which he wore indoors in violation of the etiquette of the day. Eli Wingate didn't give a tinker's damn about etiquette—or anything else except killing Indians. He was a grim, silent man who lived for that and that alone. Until his comment to the
City Gazette's
editor, he had been gazing at Lamar's books as though he were trying to figure out what they were good for.